Is Google’s new phone an opportunity for Microsoft?

Google’s announcement Friday that it has developed a branded smartphone sent shock waves through the mobile industry. That’s because because the phone, dubbed the Nexus One, reportedly will be sold online directly to consumers and not subsidized by a wireless carrier.

That means Google would be able to offer services, such as Gmail or Maps, at its own whim. Customers would have to buy wireless plans separately. And by circumventing wireless carriers – though The Wall Street Journal reported Google might add such partnerships in the future  Google could make a lot of enemies.

Google is attempting to rewrite the U.S. mobile business model. And that’s good news for Microsoft.

“I think that this is an excellent opportunity for them to improve their image,” said Azita Arvani, a mobile-industry expert and founder of the Los Angeles-based Arvani Group. “It’s unusual for Microsoft to be the friendlier partner, but in this case they are – or they at least seem that way.”

To her, Google’s continuing takeover of the mobile industry gives Microsoft a rare chance to present itself as the nice guy. And that’s in a business sector where Microsoft continues to lose ground.

Windows Mobile 6.5, mostly a holdover operating system until Windows Mobile 7, was released in October to poor reviews. And recent reports suggest WinMo7, the enigmatic OS that could bring Microsoft on par with the competition, will be released in the second half of 2010 – giving Apple and Google plenty of time to surge further ahead.

A Microsoft spokesperson said the company can’t confirm those reports, but said nothing has changed in the WinMo7 timeline. The company has said WinMo7 will be released sometime in 2010.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer himself has expressed disappointment with the company’s mobile business. In October, he said WinMo7′s delays “will not happen again” and said he wished the operating system were already released.

Windows Mobile’s market share plummeted 33 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of 2009, according to analysis firm Canalys. The OS now has about 8.8 percent of the market.

Additionally, Microsoft was long rumored to be working on its own cell phones under the codename Project Pink. But reports surfaced in October that the program was “near death,” and Ballmer has said his company has no plans to sell Microsoft-branded mobile hardware.

“It would be good if Microsoft had some sort of buzz going on with some of their partners. I don’t necessarily mean a Microsoft-branded phone; I don’t think that’d be a good thing,” Arvani said. “They need to be a little more out there, in front of the leading edge.”

If the phone were subsidized by T-Mobile, for instance, it could jeopardize Google’s partnerships with other service providers, such as Verizon. And if it weren’t, Arvani said, the phone would be very pricey.

“They’re alienating two sets of their partners: the handset manufacturers and the providers,” she said.

Google seems to be trying to bring the European mobile business model – in which many customers choose their phone and then their carrier – to the United States. And that has the potential to transform the U.S. wireless industry.

Guess who doesn’t like that idea. … The U.S. wireless industry.

Additionaly, Google would be producing not only mobile software but also hardware. And mobile applications – such as Google Voice and Google Goggles – would mark the company’s third vertical in the mobile industry.

“If (Google) becomes sort of this vertical silo, then it’s going backwards in a sense,” Arvani said. “Going from a completely software company to selling hardware is not an easy task.”

In contrast, in the mobile sector Microsoft currently sells only software. And that could make the superpower look less like a superpower – and friendlier to its partners and potential partners.

Perhaps Google is trying to bite off more than it can chew. So perhaps now is the time for Microsoft to make its own waves in the mobile industry – if it even can.